Location: The Red Room, Pimlico Wilde, Mayfair
Attendees:
• Julian Molyneux (Chair, Pimlico Wilde)
• Fiona d’Abernon (Co-Founder; Acting Secretary)
• Lord E. Northcote
• Dr. Xanthe Lorrimer (Cultural Historian)
• Hugo Van Steyn (Heckle’s)
• India Trelawney (Fashion Archivist)
• Max Duclos (Collector)
• Pascal (Afghan hound)
Book Discussed:
Fringes of Glory: Moustache Fashions In Pre-Waterloo France, 1790,1815 by Étienne Chabert (privately printed, Lyon, 2024; limited run of 300; illustrated with hand-coloured engravings of moustaches, pomades, and barber’s chairs).
1. Opening Remarks
Molyneux introduced the book as “a work of heroic necessity,” noting that Chabert had documented no fewer than 412 moustache boutiques in Napoleonic Paris. He called it “equal parts comic opera and cultural history,” pointing out how timely was an investigation into Napoleonic moustaches. He looked forward to the sequel, rumoured to be provisionally titled Did Competitive Moustacherie cause the American Revolution?
2. Discussion Summary
• Dr. Lorrimer applauded the detail with which moustache typologies were catalogued (e.g., the aigrette, the fanfaron, the petit canon). She questioned, however, whether Chabert had inflated their political symbolism: “Not every whisker can carry the weight of the Revolution.”
• India Trelawney was delighted, declaring the book “a grooming history disguised as social critique.” She confessed a fondness for the shop advertising “waxes for heroes and cowards alike.”
• Lord Northcote dismissed much of the text as “folklore masquerading as scholarship,” though he conceded that the chapter on moustache censorship in occupied Vienna was “worthy of note.” He added, with some vehemence, that moustaches are “not a subject for ladies.”
• Hugo Van Steyn defended the perceived frivolity of the book: “We are drowning in catalogues of vestments and shadows. A little hair above the lip is welcome.” He particularly admired Chabert’s reproduction of a barber’s bill for “two pomades and one whispered compliment,” and wished his barber would allow him to pay in such a manner. On realising that he had never actually suggested such an arrangement, he vowed to see whether his next visit to the barbers could be paid for with a compliment.
• Max Duclos grew impatient, arguing that the book was “ephemeral fluff,” though he admitted to being amused by the footnote tracing the rise in wax prices to Napoleon’s Continental System.
• Fiona d’Abernon found herself unexpectedly moved by the final engraving of a barber shutting his shutters on the eve of Waterloo: “It is a moustache elegy, whether he meant it or not.”
3. Objects on View
• A set of moustache combs in tortoiseshell (loaned from Van Steyn’s collection)
• A jar of period-style moustache pomade, whose scent divided the room
• A caricature by Gillray lampooning French officers’ facial hair (on loan from Northcote)
4. Refreshments
• Aperitif: Kir with cassis from Dijon
• Canapés: miniature croque monsieur, radishes with salted butter, duck rillettes on toast
• Main wine: Bordeaux, Château Lagrange 2012
• Dessert: chocolate mousse “with a flourish” (served with spun-sugar moustache decorations, to general groans)
5. Other Business
• July Book: The Silence of Shadows: A Comparative Study of Umbra in Netherlandish Still Life (previously postponed) reconfirmed as the next reading.
• Proposal from Trelawney for a themed salon later in the year: “Fashion in the Margins,books devoted to the frivolous or forgotten.” Tentative enthusiasm.
• General agreement that Fringes of Glory is indispensable, and should be given to everyone in England by government decree.
6. Adjournment
Meeting adjourned at 11:10 PM after Pascal attempted to eat one of the spun-sugar moustaches and was led gently away.
Fiona d’Abernon
Acting Secretary
Mayfair Book Groupette
